


On Starkiller Pond

by mattygroves



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Walden - Henry David Thoreau
Genre: Exactly What It Says on the Tin, Gen, Hux is Emerson, Kylo is Thoreau, Leia is amused, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-15
Updated: 2016-05-15
Packaged: 2018-06-08 12:28:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6854620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mattygroves/pseuds/mattygroves
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kylo Ren went into the woods because he wished to live deliberately.</p>
            </blockquote>





	On Starkiller Pond

Kylo Ren paced the creaking, wide floorboards of the single room house he had built in the woods, near Starkiller Pond. His hands met tightly behind his back as he tried to walk his way through the writer’s block he was currently experiencing, three paces, turn, three paces, turn, three paces at a time.

In frustration, he gave the bedside table, which he had lovingly crafted himself, a fierce kick that rendered it useless. The tabletop was in splinters amid a pile of broken legs. He picked up the pieces and threw them back into the forest from whence they came. 

A moment later, his mother stood in the doorway with a sardonic expression on her face. Her ever-present French bulldog drooled next to her.

“I like what you’ve done with the place,” she said.

She was a short woman, much shorter than her son, and a little stout with age. 

“Hello, mother,” Kylo huffed, “I trust you had a pleasant journey.”

“Yes, the mile I walked from your childhood home was most salubrious.”

“Women should never be taught to read, they only use it against us,” he muttered under his breath.

“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that,” Leia said, heaving a heavy basket onto the small table her son had yet to destroy.

“My papers, mother! Do be careful!”

“Oh, yes the book you’re writing about living in the wilderness. That reminds me, Kes Dameron has asked that you stop stealing his apples.”

She sat down comfortably in one of his three chairs.

“I’m living off the land, mother.”

“Yes, Kes Dameron’s land. And I don’t know why, when I bring you our apples every week.”

“Stolen fruit tastes sweeter,” Kylo said with a wistful grin.

“That sounds like something your idiot friend Hux would say.”

“Hux isn’t an idiot, mother, he’s a genius, and the foremost Transcendentalist our country has ever produced. His lectures fill auditoriums from Boston to the mighty Mississippi.”

“He’s a crackpot country preacher and you’ll never convince me otherwise, Ben,” she said fondly.

“Mother, how many times do I have to remind you—”

“Your father was wondering when you might be coming, home, sweetheart.”

“I came to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, mother!”

He paused for a moment, arrested in a dusty sunbeam that peered through the foggy glass window.

“Actually, that’s really good. I have to write that down. Thank you for the food, mother. I would be alone.” 

He sat forcefully at his small table and bent his shaggy head over loose papers, writing with great speed, a pencil stub clutched in his bony hand. Engrossed in his work, he didn’t see his mother’s smirk, mixed with mild confusion and immense love.

**Author's Note:**

> This came to me, as in a vision, and I was like…welp. I guess that's what I'm doing tonight.


End file.
